I'm working to go green this Halloween because I spent so many years of it in red. Red plastic. Yes, I celebrated the majority of my childhood Halloweens decked out as a red devil. A red plastic devil. I sported a red plastic cape (it seems that I was some unique breed of super-devil), red plastic horns and a red plastic pitchfork.

And if memory serves me correctly, each year I also slid into a shiny pair of red plastic pants - plastic pants! Granted, it was the early 1980s, a period not known for its use of organic materials or colors, but all that plastic continues not only to clog up my recollection of Halloweens past, but it's also most likely still sitting in a landfill waiting to biodegrade.

Halloween can be an especially eco-unfriendly holiday. There's the single-use plastic of red devil costumes, countless candy wrappers (not to mention the refined sugar, high-fructose corn syrup and artificial color of the candies themselves) and disposable decorations. According to the National Retail Federation's Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, Americans will spend more than $5 million on Halloween paraphernalia this year. That's more than $5 million worth of stuff that ultimately ends up impacting the earth.